He thought the sea-maid did not know that he had seen her, for her
footsteps came on after his own. Or, if she knew, she trusted him not to
turn. That was well; she might trust him. Never in his life had Caius
felt less temptation to do the thing that he held to be false. He knew
now, for he had seen the whole line of the beach, that there was
nothing there for him to fear, nothing that could give any adequate
reason to any man to compel him to walk as he now walked. That did not
matter; he had given his word. In the physical exaltation of the hour
the best of him was uppermost. Like the angels, who walk in heavenly
paths, he had no desire to be a thing that could stoop from moral
rectitude. The knowledge that his old love of the sea was his companion
only enhanced the strength of his vow, only made all that the strength
of vows mean more dear to him; and the moonlit shore was more beautiful,
and life, each moment that he was then living, more absolutely good.
So they went on, and he did not try to think where the sea-maid had come
from, or whether the gray flapping dress and the girlish step were but
the phantom guise that she could don for the hour, or whether, if he
should turn and pursue her, she would drop from her upright height into
the scaly folds that he had once seen, and plunge into the waves, or
whether _that_ had been the masquerade, and she a true woman of the
land.
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